Beautiful Thing
by namewithheld
Summary: Bonnie chooses her victim: speculation as to what she was thinking when she saw Adam for the first time, set during Secret Service.


Title: Beautiful Thing

Author: Tote

Genre: angst…?

Rating: PG

A/N: I hate Bonnie. But I always wondered what she was thinking in this scene, and I've always suspected why she wanted Adam in the first place. Here it is, read it and feel free to bombard me with reviews telling me how much you despise me for rubbing salt in the wound. Sorry. 

I pretty much hated her on sight. Somebody said she egged Price's car—something I guess I could've respected, but I didn't really buy it. Her mom like, _works _at the school. I figured she was here for being late a couple of times in a row or something.

She's one of those girls that make guys stare, without dressing like a slut. This, really, is enough to make me hate anyone. I watched her while she painted; looking intensely bored but doing her best all the same. I saw a total delinquent named Darrell who makes _me_ seem like a goody two shoes checking her out and I don't know why, it just bugged me.

I kept watching her from the corner of my eye all day, trying to figure out, from an artist's perspective, what it was about her. She wore hardly any make-up. Her skin was clear but pale. There was chipped blue nail polish on her fingernails. If I painted her, I'd paint her in profile. Nothing special about any of her features alone and yet…she was beautiful. I hate beautiful things.

Joan disappeared upstairs somewhere and I shook my head, wishing for the swish of her hair, its smooth dark, auburn tresses. I wondered if she was grateful for her looks and decided she wasn't, she was a blank. Some depthless, pretty girl with no soul, no artistic beauty. She could go fuck herself.

Then, suddenly, Adam appeared in the doorway. I knew his name, I saw him in the halls but I didn't like, know him or anything. But seeing him all of a sudden like that, was like seeing a movie star step out of the TV screen. I stopped painting and just looked at him. God, he was…well, not beautiful, but dark and interesting and sexy, in his own weird way. I licked my lips absently. Dark things are more interesting.

I imagined him feeling my stare and catching my eye: that would be the test. If he smiled, it meant he was just another mindless, shit-eating guy with no depth. But if he just looked, and held my gaze a second too long…then I'd tell him about darkness and beauty and art.

But Adam didn't look at me at all. Because Joan came downstairs again with a bag full of trash and he looked at her instead, with this weird, watchful care that shook me. He looked at her like the world ended and began with her eyes. He looked at her like she belonged to him, like he belonged to her—beyond high school, beyond lust. It was possessive and desperate and never-ending.

My eyes started stinging and for the first time in forever, I felt like crying. It made me angry. I abandoned my paintbrush and leaned against the dry wall opposite, watching him watch her. She was oblivious to him until this guy Denunzio said he was looking for her.

I watch them gravitate toward each other, inevitably, and sadness dripped off them. Her eyes flicker to his face and away as she murmurs: "Hey, what are you doing here?" but his eyes stay steady on her face. He looks serious, grave but I can see something in his eyes like joy; no matter what, it's good to see her.

"I was just on my way to work," he replies, leaning into her, "and I wanted to see you." He has amazing eyes. "I hate what's happening to us."

I bite back a smile. Trouble in paradise?

She nods, earnestly, "I know, me too," and they keep looking at each other so—I don't know, I couldn't name it then and I haven't seen it since.

They looked kind of like they were lovers, on two boats, pulling away from each other, seeing the distance getting bigger and bigger between them, unable to find their way back. I feel my knees go weak and I wonder if I'll ever see anyone that in love with me. But love's overrated anyway; it's a nothing in the end, a fairy tale with no happy ending. Even these two can't make it.

Joan says: "I wanted to call you all day but…" she sees me watching and I silently challenge her to say something, but she coughs and goes: "I have to take the trash out. Want to give me a hand?"

Adam agrees and they walk out. My heart thunders in my chest as they go down the steps and the sunlight falls on them, together, and it casts this golden Hallmark card glow over their heads like the Almighty himself just reserved two seats for them in the romance-of-the-century skybox and I fucking hate her guts, because I know, I know now what makes her so beautiful.

She's loved.

Lily comes up behind me, "It's time to check out. Tell Joan when you see her." I don't respond. "Bonnie? Hello? Okay?"

I nod and run out after them, but I'm frozen at the top of the stone steps, holding onto the metal railing. I can only see Adam from the back but I see the way Joan is looking at him, I see her reach to touch him so naturally, so easily and I want him; I want him more than I've wanted anything, because he's hers.


End file.
